


Worth Fighting For

by ApexOnHigh



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-07-22 22:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7457107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApexOnHigh/pseuds/ApexOnHigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed has something he needs to talk about, but he hopes it won't cost him his relationship with Olivia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth Fighting For

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meg22591](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meg22591/gifts).



> Story is set in the later half of season 17, after "Manhattan Transfer" and "Unholiest Alliance".

Ed sits alone in Olivia's living room, in the darkness of the night hours, thinking.

He knows he has to talk to Olivia soon about things...about a number of things. But how exactly should he bring them up? He's conflicted. He doesn't want to hurt her with what he has to say. He also doesn't want to lose her. Yet he's not sure he can go on with their relationship as it is without saying something. He can't keep pretending that things are totally fine the way they are. If they are going to have a future together, he thinks, they need to deal with certain issues, and sooner rather than much later.

He's always considered himself a strong man, blunt and direct. Someone who speaks his mind and says what needs to be said. But in the past that's meant he hasn't ended up with many friends. Not many lovers have stayed with him for long. He doesn't want the same thing to happen with the woman he's involved with today and can see having a real future with.

Ed sits there, silently thinking, brooding, agonizing over his options. He loses track of time. But eventually he hears the sound of footsteps on the creaky wooden floor of the apartment hallway. He steels himself as a familiar voice calls to him, "Ed?"

"I'm in here, Olivia."

He turns to see her figure in the doorway to the living room and sighs. _God, she does things to me_ , he thinks. Just the mere suggestion of her barely visible figure in the darkness is enough to turn him on. She walks closer and he sees she had his shirt on, and nothing else. The sight makes him want to pull her to him, kiss her, make love to her again immediately and forget his troubled thoughts.

But he's been doing that too many nights already and realizes he can push his concerns aside no longer.

She sits by him and he can see her more clearly now. She looks worried too, and he hates being the one to put that worry there. She's been through enough troubles in her life and he doesn't want to add to them.

She asks, "Everything alright?"

He's tempted to say, _Fine, just a little restless and didn't want to wake you._ But he can't lie to her. He's not a good liar and he hates it when other people lie to him. "Couldn't sleep."

"Was I snoring?"

He smiles. "A little, but that didn't keep me up." She does snore, sometimes, but it's what typically triggers her snoring that bothers him. He takes her hand in his own and says, "I'm worried about something and how it could affect us."

"The job?" Olivia guesses. " _Our_ jobs? Ed, we've talked about that already and..."

"I know, and it's not the job, although I still have my hesitations about being too open about us at work. Olivia...I'm worried..." _No, that's not the way to begin this,_ he stops himself. "You are an incredibly strong person. Everything you've been through, you amaze me every day that you haven't cracked or given up on the job by now."

"I have my moments when I really want to...but I can't give it up. I can't stop helping the people who need me."

"I understand that, and that's one of the things I appreciate so much about you." He almost says "love", but they haven't had that conversation yet. And now isn't the time he wanted to admit to that. "But sometimes I'm beginning to think...you need to be sure to take care of yourself, too. Emotionally, mentally. Reach out more when it's getting to be too much. I've...noticed lately that you may be...drinking more when the pressure gets to you."

"I like a glass or two of wine at the end of the night to unwind. So do you."

"Yes, a drink or two. Not an entire bottle. Not...three or four drinks at the bar in rapid fire, getting anxious if the next round is taking too long to arrive."

Olivia pulls her hand away from Ed's and brushes her hair back behind her ear. "I didn't notice you were counting," she says, sharpness in her voice. "I'm not a drunk, Ed."

"I didn't say you were."

"My mother was an alcoholic, as I'm sure you are aware. And after what I went through growing up with her, I vowed I would never end up like her."

"I'm not questioning that. But as a child of an alcoholic you also appreciate the risks are there that it can happen whether we want it to or not. We have a harder time not falling into the trap ourselves."

"We? Ourselves?"

Ed sits back and sighs, rubbing his forehead. "My mother used to start early in the morning. Carry around a mug that she said was coffee, hide it in the cabinet while she was cooking. She was the classic 'functional' alcoholic who thought she had everyone fooled, and to a large extent she did. People who didn't have to live with her, at least. Kids who didn't have to come home and wonder why she passed out right after dinner, if she even made it to dinner with the family in the first place."

"I'm sorry, Ed. You never told me."

"It's not something I talk about with many people, for obvious reasons. I watched my own mother drink herself to death and my father could do nothing to help her. None of us could. Or at least, back then, we didn't know how. We weren't the kind of family to talk about problems or seek help from anyone other than maybe our priest."

"I do see a therapist. He helps, a lot."

"Have you talked with him about your drinking? That you might be self-medicating with alcohol?"

"No, I...I'm sorry, Ed. I know you're right." She looks and sounds upset now. He reaches for her hand again. She doesn't pull away. "I see what I've been doing but I guess I've been in denial. Things have been so hard lately and sometimes it feels like no one is there to really help me...no one but you. And I don't want to lose you."

"I'm not going anywhere, Olivia." He pulls her close to him and kisses the top of her head, her hair. He wants to reassure her. "Just let me help. Be open and honest with me, that's all I ask. To be truthful I honestly blame myself in a way, all the time we go out to unwind at the bar...maybe we could both use a change of venue, try to get into different habits together."

"As long as it's together."

"Without question." He holds her quietly. He feels relieved they've talked about this even as he knows it's only a beginning. Things won't be so easy, and there will be rough days ahead. But he isn't going to give up on Olivia or this relationship without a fight, and he recognizes she's a fighter, too.

"Come on. Let's go back to bed," he says. She looks at him with a smile and then he kisses her. He wants to show that things are good between them.

She says, "Just promise you'll be there when I wake up in the morning."

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

 


End file.
